BENGAZI. 291 cessity really exists, to justify private acts of caprice and oppression, which have themselves only resulted from the long-indulged habit of executing similar outrages for others.

The Bey having been officially apprized of our arrival, and that we were desirous of paying our respects to him, appointed a day to receive us ; and when the time arrived we proceeded to the castle, accompanied by Signor Rossoni, the British vice-consul at Bengazi, and his brother, Mr. Giacomo Rossoni. We found the Bey in a plain whitewashed room of unimposing dimensions, but cool and tolerably clean, seated upon cushions spread round a niche which had been formed in the waU for the purpose. On each side of this recess, or alcove, were ranged the principal officers of the household, the chaouses, and several shekhs ; other parts of the room were occupied by slaves and persons of inferior condition. There was much less ceremony in the court of Bey Hahl than in that of the Bashaw at Tripoly, and the conversation appeared to have been pretty general before we entered the apartment in which he received us.

The hum of voices subsided all at once as we made our appearance, and every person’s eyes seemed determined to exert themselves in proportion as his tongue was laid under restraint ; for the steady gaze of all present was fixed upon our party as we took up our stations near the Bey. We found his excellency a good-looking, well-formed man, who, apparently from inactivity and good living, had attained to that state of dignified emhonpoint at which persons of inferior consideration in Mahometan countries are very seldom destined to arrive. A Georgian by birth, Bey Hahl possessed 2 P 2